Introducing new Academic Registrars

Roisin Bhamjee is one of the three new Academic Registrars for 2018. She will be undertaking her research with A/Prof Lena Sanci exploring the experiences, evaluation and opinions of General Practitioners participating in the Victorian “Doctors in Secondary Schools” program, an initiative implemented by the Victorian government from early 2017. This school health program will entail adolescent health-trained General Practitioners providing primary health care to students on school premises in one hundred secondary education centres deemed to be in disadvantaged areas of Victoria. The title of her research will be “Doctors in Secondary Schools: experiences and perspectives of General Practitioners involved”.

Kelly Champane’s research project is about the perspectives of practice nurses working in the new government school program. The aims are to find out what roles nurses have adopted in this program, how well prepared they felt for this role, what further training they would have liked/would like to assist them in their role, what are some of the key barriers and enablers of their role and how the program can be improved. Kelly will conduct interviews with practice nurses in both urban and rural areas. She is also supervised by A/Prof Lena Sanci.

Hamish McLachlan will be working with A/Prof John Furler and Dr Jo-Anne Manski-Nankervis on his project of – Personalised care in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D): exploring the decision making of clinicians when personalising HbA1c targets and choosing hypoglycaemic medications. A qualitative study will be undertaken using a series of focus groups comprised of expert clinicians experienced in the management of T2D. A selection of clinical vignettes will be discussed to understand how clinicians identify Hba1c targets and then decide on second and third line hypoglycaemic therapies, with direct mapping to existing guidelines.